This year Valentine's Day ended up on a Friday and on a 3-day weekend, score! Over the weekend I made this Blueberry French Toast Casserole. It's so delicious! It's very important what bread you use. You want to use a low calorie, low sugar, healthy bread. Normally I like my french toast with French Brioche which I would go special to a bakery to get, but not for this recipe. Unsweetened almond milk has less sugar, less calories, less carbs, less fat, and more fiber than cows milk.This recipe freezes great too so you can save some for next weekend.

Clean Eating Blueberry French Toast Casserole
(Makes 6 servings)

Ingredients:
6 cups cubed, whole grain bread
8 egg whites (I use Abbotsford cage free liquid egg whites)
1½ cups unsweetened almond milk
¼  cup honey
1 tsp. vanilla extract
2 tsp. almond extract (adds a nice flavor to it)
2 tsp. ground cinnamon
2 cups fresh blueberries

Directions:

1. In a large mixing bowl, combine the egg whites, almond milk, honey, extracts and cinnamon. Whisk well.
2. Oil a baking dish (about 9 x 13), and fill it with the bread.
3. Pour the liquid mixture over the bread and allow it to sit for at least 30 minutes, mixing once or twice to be sure all parts of the bread are moistened.
4. Mix in the blueberries.
5. Bake the casserole at 350 F. for about 45 minutes or until there is no longer any liquid between the bread.
6. Cool 5 minutes then serve.

Recipe credit: Gracious Pantry  

I wanted to show you how I celebrated Valentine's Day this year.

I'm big on themed dish towels and change mine throughout the year according to the season. So this month I'm using my new Valentine themed dish towels. I bought two sets because I only liked one towel from each set. For the two that I didn't like, one towel has red coffee mugs and says "love you latte" and the other one has the word love all over it. If anyone wants them let me know.

I made my sweetie a coupon book for things we can do together.

I got a nude colored kimono because I'm not a fuchsia kind of girl, love my soft beigey light pinks.


I painted a gold heart on my nails. It's taken me awhile to find the perfect red shade for my skin tone. I know everyone loves OPI I'm Not Really a Waitress but it never looked good on me. For my hands I'm wearing Rekha and on my toes I wear a brighter color Sooki.

I changed the message on my chalkboard to this:

I saw Kevin Hart's new movie About Last Night. If you look at my Popular Posts list on the right sidebar, my post about Kevin's last movie is one of my top 5 posts. This movie was about dating in Chicago and follows two couples throughout the year. It co-stars Michael Ealy (pictured below) who seems to be in every Black movie these days. lol It's a funny movie and great for a Valentine's Day date.


Tosca Reno wrote a wonderful post for Valentine's Day:

Eating Clean is a lifestyle, a journey! Embarking on this lifestyle change includes everyone around you: your family, your friends, even your acquaintances. Seeing as its Valentine's Day, I want to focus on the relationship between Eating Clean and your partner. This lifestyle choice can prove to be quite a challenge for couples who don't see eye-to-eye about healthy food and a healthy limit of activity. For other couples this can be the foundation of their relationship; a choice that truly bonds them together; a union of love for Clean food, sweat and iron! Either way there are always ups and downs in every relationship – healthy or not.

I made her recipe for Pomegranate Fizz – 2 oz. Pomegranate juice, 1/2 to 1 oz. Triple sec or other orange liqueur, 5 oz. Chilled champagne, squeeze of fresh lemon juice, 6-8 pomegranate seeds with grated lemon rind (zest).


This year I didn't bake my usual Valentine's Day cookies or make chocolate covered strawberries because I didn't want the day focused on sugar. The only dessert we had was a couple heart shaped macarons because I love their pillowy deliciousness and aren't too bad calorie wise. We went out to a new Italian restaurant that doesn't serve table bread and I ordered a half serving of pasta that came with edible flowers on top!

I also just received my shipment of the new Shakeology flavor and that has been the best part of this month, how much I'm loving Strawberry Shakeology!

The winter Olympics are my favorite because I love figure skating! The art, the skill, the music, the fashion! I try to go ice-skating once a year but this year I'm thinking about taking lessons. I took ballet lessons as a child and figure skating is the art of the same movement on ice.


First Place - Yulia Lipnitskaya - Russia

She's only 15 years old and as you see in this picture she's more flexible than I am in yoga class! lol With her leg up like that she turned and twisted many times, I so impressed! Her style of skating was just beautiful and flowy. The following day at the Team Free Dance competition she also took the Gold Medal.
For the next event her costume was the little girl with the red coat from Schindler's List, it's a popular piece of music to skate to. You can watch the video here, you'll be impressed by how beautifully she skates!

Second Place - Carolina Kostner - Italy

This was her third time at the Olympics, the other two she was scored at the bottom and debated whether or not she she bother to come back a third time. Goes to show you should never give up! I loved her sequin sleeves.

Third Place - Mao Asada - Japan

After doing a triple axel jump, she felt flat on the ground, but still she got third place! And she had the most beautiful costume on! On the back was a sequin panel.

Winning the Silver in the Pairs Skating event was Germany to the music of the Pink Panther, talk about an electrifying costume! I googled Robin to see what his ethnic background was. Turns out his German mother met his Tanzanian father in college in Germany, but Robin didn't meet his father until a couple years ago. Someone was telling me there's a whole generation of bi-racial babies in Russia from similar situations.

1,300 of these medals will be awarded!

I went to St. Petersburg, Russia as a class trip in high school so I've really enjoyed watching all the coverage of Sochi. If you've been following all the news coverage about Sochi you might have heard about the hilarious and horrendous conditions there. Did you know that Canada brought its own beer dispensing vending machine? lol All you have to do is swipe your Canadian passport and you get a free beer!The funniest part of the Opening Ceremony was the Russian Police Choir singing Da Punk's Get Lucky. video 

Last Friday I went to an Olympic Opening Ceremony party and had so much fun! Here are some pics from the event, that line of parked cars was people waiting to drop off with the valet! lol

s'mores for outdoor fire

ice sculpture

I enjoyed watching a new event this year at the Olympics called Slopestyle which is snowboarding with the goal of performing the most difficult tricks while getting the highest amplitude off of jumps. Basically its aerial acrobatics flipping around upside town 3 times in one jump.  One funny moment was watching the coach for Finland knitting at the top of the slope. lol Here's a picture of the Gold Winner Sage Kotsenburg from America:


One of the competitors trained on a dry slope, which is an artificial ski slope used for practice and training.

Did you know that women aren't allowed to ski jump in the Olympics, even though they've been petitioning for years?

The Dutch won the Gold, Silver and Bronze medals in Speed Skating which is a sport I had never heard of until my co-worker told me her 10 year old son does it. But did you know the American team has a black speed skater? Shani Davis. He grew up with a single mom on the south side of Chicago, no ice rings near him, but he won Gold at the last two Winter Olympics. He's the first African-American to win a solo medal at a Winter Olympic game. If you saw the movie the Incredibles,  Frozone, the black superhero with ice powers was inspired by Shani Davis. In 2002 he inspired DC Inner City Excellence, which is located at the Fort Dupont Ice Arena in DC which encourages exposure to the ice to children of all ethnic backgrounds.

The award for most colorful costume goes to the Norwegian curling team. Steve Harvey had the US Ladies Team teach him how to play and it's not easy!

I also tried out a new product by Bite Beauty called Agave Lip Mask which is made of organic agave nectar, jojoba oil, vanilla CO2 extract, and triple the amount of antioxidant trans-resveratrol found in red wine and best of all no petroleum. It's a overnight leave on lip mask that nourishes your lips, I've never heard of a product like this before. If you're desperate to treat chapped lips, give it a try!

I've held on to an old empty tube of a limited edition lip gloss color from MAC for years. When I discovered that Dior makes an identical color, I jumped for joy! lol Ambre Lumiere is a gorgeous  copper-brown with peach and gold shimmer. Nude lip colors really are my favorite because I like to wear bold eyeshadow, but for Valentine's Day I will be wearing my favorite red lipstick and red nail polish.